God’s Party ofthe First Part

An Orange County woman and her husband are suing CBS Studios and actress Dyan Cannon for negligence. Melody Traylor alleges she was injured in a fall last Aug. 26 at a “God’s Party” led by Cannon. The actress, most recently known for her role as a lusty judge on “Ally McBeal,” lays hands on participants and performs Pentecostal-style faith healing at the events, held on alternating Saturdays on the CBS lot.

According to the Los Angeles County Superior Court suit, Traylor was called up to the stage to be prayed over, then “was instructed to fall backward” and was to be caught by a staff member. She wasn’t, the suit says, and sustained lasting but unspecified injuries. Traylor seeks damages and compensation for lost wages and medical expenses. Her husband, Mark Traylor, now prays the court awards damages for loss of consortium.

We left a message at God’s Party headquarters, where a voice on the answering machine says, “You are very special to us.” But no one called back by deadline.

Welcome to L.A.

New cast members of “Ally McBeal” received a jolting welcome at a photo shoot Sunday in West Los Angeles. Just as everyone was about to say cheese, the studio started to shake, the overhead lights came tumbling down, and the cast and crew scrambled into the courtyard.

Newcomers Julianne Nicholson and James Marsden had never experienced an earthquake before, said the show’s spokeswoman, Stacey Luchs. They huddled with quake veterans while Greg Germann, a.k.a. Richard Fish, organized a pool. A crew member won, correctly guessing the quake’s magnitude, 4.2.

Bad Taste Alert

A tiny, 86-year-old actress is suing Andy Dick and MTV networks for humiliating her during a taping for Dick’s eponymous show by having a naked man jump on her and simulate a sexual assault in a comedy skit. She also is seeking a court injunction barring Dick and MTV from airing the segment.

R. Sparkle Stillman is 4-feet, 2-inches tall, weighs 76 pounds and has a congenital spinal deformity that makes breathing difficult. She says in court papers that she thought she was going to be in a purse-snatching skit, but when she arrived for the June 18 taping at a Santa Monica park, she was told that skit was cut.

Instead, the suit says, the actress was instructed to lie on her back on the ground. Stillman claims that nobody told her what the new skit would be about, and when she asked, a “first assistant director yelled at her and told her to ‘shut up.”’ At that point, the naked man jumped on her and rubbed his body against hers, according to the suit, which seeks damages for emotional distress, sexual battery and negligence. An MTV spokesperson said, “MTV does not comment on pending litigation.”

Among the ‘Drowned’

Spotted at Madonna’s “Drowned World” Tour concert Sunday night at Staples Center were Tom Cruise, who made a very public entrance, Penelope Cruz, Christina Aguilera, Lucy Liu, Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Costner. Madonna dedicated a song, “Secret,” to Costner, whom she dissed in her film “Truth or Dare.”

Doing Time

They say you should write about what you know, and jailed British novelist Jeffrey Archer is doing just that. A friend said in London’s Sunday Telegraph that Archer has started a book about prison life to keep himself busy while he serves a four-year sentence for perjury.

Chris Beetles called reports that Archer is a broken man absolute rubbish. “He is neither depressed nor bitter about his ordeal,” Beetles said. “There is not the slightest hint of anger or malice in his voice.”

Archer, once a powerful Tory politician, fabricated evidence in a libel case against a newspaper that accused him of consorting with a prostitute.

Writing is not Archer’s only creative outlet at the medium security Wayland Prison, Beetles added. The best-selling author also has taken up pottery.

Denials

Reaction to Anne “Celestia” Heche’s media blitz for her book, “Call Me Crazy,” ranges from a ho-hum from former love Ellen DeGeneres to staunch denials from her family that Heche was sexually abused as a child. In interviews with Barbara Walters, Larry King and just about anyone else who would listen, Heche said being molested by her father, who gave her herpes and later died of AIDS, led her to escape to a fantasy world where she thought she was from another planet.

DeGeneres told reporters that now that her “life is back on track” a year after the breakup, she doesn’t “need to be distracted” by anything Heche says or does--including, we assume, marrying Coley Laffoon and announcing her pregnancy and plans for her own television comedy show.

In the book, Heche says that when she told her mother that she’d broken up with actor Steve Martin, her mom replied, “Steve must be devastated. Do you think he’d be willing to go out with me?”

Heche’s mother, Nancy, writes on PreviewPort.com, a family Web site: “I am trying to find a place ... where I, as Anne’s mother, do not feel violated or scandalized. I find no place among the lies and the blasphemies in the pages of this book.”

Anne’s sister Abigail writes: “It is my opinion that my sister Anne truly believes at this moment what she has asserted about our father’s past behavior ... I believe that her memories regarding our father are untrue. And I can state emphatically, regardless of Anne’s beliefs, that the assertion that our mother knew about such behavior is absolutely false.”

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Times staff writers Gina Piccalo and Louise Roug contributed to this column. City of Angles runs Tuesday-Friday. Email: angles@latimes.com.